


Parallel Worlds

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Series: Parallel Storms 'verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: ASL, American Sign Language, Deaf Character, Dean Has Powers, Dean and Kids, Dean has a secret, Dean is Floaty, Dean is NOT Suicidal, Dean is a Good Friend, Dean is a Hufflepuff, Dean is a Sweetheart, Disabled Character, Disabled Dean, Dissociation, Dissociative Dean Winchester, Fans, Gen, Happy Ending, I forget how to gloss, Inspired by Quantum Leap, Inspired by The Time Traveler's Brother, Mental Health Issues, Mute Dean Winchester, Neurodivergent Dean Winchester, Not in detail out of respect of not screwing it up in text, Parallel Life, Parallel Universes, Protective Dean Winchester, Quantum Leap - Freeform, Semi-Colon Project, Semicolon Project, Sign Language, Signing Dean Winchester, Suicidal Ideation, Teenagers, Tiny Dean, Young Winchesters, abusive families, mandela effect, mentions, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 03:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11705427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Dean has become a little bit untethered from his body and his reality. He starts meeting people.





	Parallel Worlds

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Time Traveler's Brother](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746736) by [gretazreta (Greta)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greta/pseuds/gretazreta). 



> I'm uploading a ton of one shots right now from the 2008-2011 period, but I actually wrote this today. It's not as elaborate in some ways as it could be but it came out decently. 08.04.17.

One second he is hanging on to little Sammy. Then someone--Daddy or a fireman--pulls Sammy away and he feels floaty. He sees that the ground is getting further and further away and he feels like he’s less *there* anymore.

Then he hits the floor with a thunk, wood floor and he’s on the underside of something. There’s someone under there with him.

A little girl.

“Sssh, you have to hide,” she says.

They are on the floor and below them a fight is raging. He can feel it in the air. He’s never heard a Mommy and Daddy yell like this before, but he knows the energy all the same, the energy of what has bothered his Daddy since he had to shoot people for the first time. One time his mama called it shellshock.

“Are you a ghost?” the little girl asks. “If you’re a ghost, will you be my friend?”

_I’m not a ghost, I’m Dean._

He’s floating away again, he can feel it. So he says the nicest thing he can before he’s gone. _I’ll always be your friend. Remember me when they fight._

*~*~*

Thud. He hits the ground again like landing on a basketball court. Actually, it is a basketball court. In the middle of the day. A bunch of kids are throwing around a dodgeball, only they keep throwing it at a boy Dean’s age who’s obviously naturally unsteady on his feet.

“HEY!” Dean screams, and he’s still ghost-pale. Nobody knows where it comes from. He keeps running in a circle around them and screaming, “HEY!” 

They stop throwing the dodge ball, and from the looks on their faces Dean is pretty sure they’re not going to again.

_Remember me. I’m your friend._

*~*~*

Dean floats in and out and out and in of a dozen situations.

_Remember me. I’m your friend. I need a friend. You need a friend. We’re here for each other. Friends are here for each other._

That’s what his mama always told him, so that’s what he tells them.

He doesn’t know when he’ll stop floating. He doesn’t know when he’ll get back to Sammy. And he does need to get back to Sammy but for now….

_I’ll be your friend. We all need friends. It’s okay. I’m your friend. You’re a good person._

Anyway, where he has to go back to, there’s Sam but Sam can’t miss him yet and Dean doesn’t have his mama and so he might as well do this. He’s helping kids.

_Remember me. I’m your friend._

Suddenly he’s yanked back into the present and his life.

“Dean!” His father is scared. And he looks older. He already looks older.

After that it happens in dreams, or late at night when no one is awake but Dean.

Dean meets other kids who feel like they’re floating outside their bodies too much, and other kids who don’t like to talk a lot, and a few times some kids who tell him with sign language they are Deaf and he signs the few things he learned like the alphabet and fingerspells that when he’s really scared he goes mute. A little boy named Connor gives him a high five and tells him his fingerspelling is great. He makes it a point to learn more sign.

Dean floats through the ether and hears distant guitar riffs of Zeppelin and AC/DC and remembers to teach them to some of the kids he meets at night.

*~*~*

It happens every night for the rest of his life. When he tries to explain it to Sam, well, he and Sam are already barely talking. He knows about Sam’s plans to leave at the earliest possible moment. He knows his dad knows something’s up, they don’t talk much either but they have the music and now Dean is teaching it to teenagers and twenty-somethings.

*~*~*

Then one day Dean’s crowning achievement comes. By now he understands a little more, he can control it, and he doesn’t have favorites but he’s drawn to the people who need the most help, like Josie who hid under the bed when he was 4.

For a week he visits the same girl. She’s always struggled. Dean can see it in her eyes. So he hears her when she says it.

_Dean. I know you’re out there._

_I’m here._

_I don’t know if I should do something. Something other people think is bad. But it doesn’t seem that bad to me, Dean._

And he knows, but it’s her choice.

He keeps visiting.

And a week later she’s here. She’s reading a page on the Internet he picks out for her. They can’t always hear him, so he still signs to some of them instead of using words. 

She drives with her best friend to a same day tattoo parlor for her eighteenth birthday and Dean watches her quietly in the corner while she gets her semi-colon tattoo.

It’s one of the proudest moments Dean has ever been present for.

_That’s why I’m here. I’ll always be your friend._

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to some of the fantasy and sci-fi that inspired parts of this. I also always wish they'd come out longer, but I'm a writing sprinter.
> 
> ETA 9/12/17: I now have 2 stories in this 'verse and am writing the third one quite slowly. This is likely to be the end, but once I start a concept my mind often travels back there, so I keep them a bit open ended and add as I go. I'm back in some prompt communities, so who knows really. Anyway I hope you enjoy the 'verse. It's a little bit meta for me. :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I'll Be Your Friend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11966025) by [roguefaerie (samidha)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie)




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